Historical Examples
Resource:
“Graphical Milestones”: collection by
Michael Friendly and Daniel J. Denis !
http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/
milestone/
The Beginnings
“oldest map”: Konya town map
(c. 6200 BC) !
wall painting!
9 by 3 feet
Leonardo da Vinci
1452-1519!
Vitruvius Man:
scientific proportion
study of the male
body!
Pen & Ink (c. 1478)!
13.5 in x 9 5/8 in
Michael F. van Langren
1600-1675, Spain!
variations in determination of longitude
difference between Toledo and Rome
(1644)
Edmond Halley
trade-winds & monsoons chart 1685
Edmond Halley
contour map (1701):!
isogonic lines (i.e.
same magnetic
declination)
Joseph Priestley
Historical Time Line (1744)!
Life Spans of 2000 famous people !
1200 BC - 1744 AD
William Playfair
Scottish engineer and political economist, !
Important inventor of statistical graphics:
Playfair argued that charts communicated better than
tables of data. !
Author of “The Commercial and Political Atlas” (1786, in
London):!
contains 43 time series plots and one bar chart (first)!
first major work to contain statistical graphs. !
“Statistical Breviary” (1801) contains first pie chart.
Price of Wheat (1801)
National Debt
(1801)
Line Chart of Time Series:!
national debt of England
between 1688 and 1801!
important events are
labelled!
“The effect, which is before us in the chart, is the natural one
of perpetual loans; for though it might have been managed a
little better, or a little worse, as long as it continued upon this
plan, it must have increased, unless as much money had been
levied in time of peace, as would pay off the debt contracted
in the previous war; but if this were done, it would be the
same with annuities, because it would be raising taxes to pay
off, at a certain time, the capital of the debt. That, however,
has not been done, except, during this last war, content with
getting possession of the money, we have left to future
generations the trouble of repaying it. ” — William Playfair,
1801 p. 85.
First Barchart
Exports and Imports
from Scotland
(1823)
Balance of Trade
Try to sketch the difference between the
red and the green line
The First Pie
Circles
represent area
of a country!
left line:
population (mio)!
right line: tax
(mio pounds)
An Early Pie Chart (1805)
Statistical
Representation of
the United States
Pierre Charles Dupin
Cartogram: Rates
of Illiteracy in
France (1819)!
first example of a
statistical map
Charles Joseph Minard
1781 - 1870!
French civil engineer !
In his retirement published “Cartes
figuratives”!
pioneer of thematic cartography and
other novel graphic forms
Napoleon’s Russian Campaign in 1812
John Snow
Cholera Map (1854)!
!
landmark in
epidemiology
Florence Nightingale
1820 - 1910!
“Coxcombs” - rose plots - polar bar
charts!
Nurse, followed the army during the
Crimea Wars (1854-1855)!
Causes of Mortality for the Army in the
East (1858)
Sir Francis Galton
1822 - 1911!
weather map (1861)
with icons for
pressure and wind
direction
Eadweard Muybridge
Galloping Horse
(1872)!
set of glass-plate
cameras,
triggered by
strings
Etienne Jules Marey (1885)
Train Schedule Paris - Lyon
Today’s!
TGV
Abraham Wald (1944)
Challenge: !
Add armor to airplanes!
!
pattern of bullet
holes of returning
airplanes!
Conclusion: put armor everywhere else!
Harold N. Fisk (1944)
Alluvial valley of the
Lower Mississippi!
Girardeaux, MO to
Donaldsonville, LA